Hulu Has Cancelled ‘The Great’ And Fans Of The Show Are Prepping To Storm A Castle With Torches And Pitchforks

When Billy Joel crooned that only the good die young, he was talking about Hulu’s The Great.

The satirical comedy from The Favourite scribe Tony McNamara has been canceled by the streaming platform after just three seasons, leaving fans grief-stricken. Starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, the show was an absurdist exercise in historical re-telling, intentionally fudging the truth behind Catherine the Great’s (Fanning) rise to power after her marriage to the murderous spoiled man-child that was Peter III, the 18th-century Russian monarch overthrown just one year into his reign. And sure, there are plenty of great TV shows biting the dust because of piss-poor management decisions made by bloated egos in Brooks Brothers suits but this one stings — mostly because it sparked a delightfully unhinged era in Hoult’s cinematic career but also because it was a sharp, witty period romp with bizarre characters, lush costumes, and truly ridiculous storylines.

Werner Herzog once described civilization as the thin layer of ice atop a deep ocean of chaos and darkness. We’ve never felt closer to that lawless void than right now. Faced with the reality that making good art is futile because streamers can shelf entire masterpieces on a whim — and with the possibility that we may never again witness Hoult toss a Pomeranian off a balcony for the sake of scientific advancement — we’ll now leave you to mourn the death of this underrated TV gem with a collection of tweets that should, hopefully, catapult you to the next stage of the grieving process: the part where we assemble a dozen Molotov cocktails to launch at Hulu’s headquarters. Huzzah!